


Breaking point

by AvandraTheMarySueSlayer



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Why can't I stop writing angsty angst, you know which one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 20:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvandraTheMarySueSlayer/pseuds/AvandraTheMarySueSlayer
Summary: What does it take to break the strongest warrior?





	Breaking point

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this celebratory one-shot for Strangeness and Charm reaching over 500 views! Halfway to 1000, can't believe it! Thank you all so much!
> 
> This piece is about another of my charnames, Kasha the half-orc berserker. You may expect a lot of rage going on, but I'd rather start by showing her more vulnerable side. Set right after Gorion's death.

* * *

 

Birds chirped atop the trees their cheerful spring tunes as the sun shone through the green leaves spotted with beautiful, fragrant flowers here and there. The patches of sky Kasha could see from among the trees were an intense shade of blue, without a single cloud to mar them. It was as if nature itself conspired against her to mock her misery.

 

Imoen hadn't stop babbling since she woke her from her uneasy slumber. She had told Kasha she was sorry for her loss, and the half-orc greatly appreciated the gesture, but soon after she followed through with idle chat about this and that, with the clear goal to distract her friend and try to get her to cheer up. Obvious as she may have been and fruitless as her efforts were, Kasha felt she didn't deserve Imoen, and she definitely didn't deserve to have her abandon her home and put herself in danger out of worry for her well-being. After all, it was easy to survive for cowards like her. Because that was what Kasha was. A coward. Sure, back in Candlekeep she was the strongest warrior the isolated fortress had seen, but in the real world it had just taken the golden, glowing glare of a monstrous man, a fire arrow to her chest and an order from her foster father to send her running to the hills.

 

_ Father… _

 

She still couldn't believe what happened the night before. She didn't want to. That was why she needed to go back to the place of the ambush and see for herself. She knew it was pointless, that it wouldn't solve anything, but she just had to do it. So she picked up the pace, ignoring Imoen's protests about how hard it was to keep up with her much longer strides. She didn't slow down until she began to see scorched trees, the wood blackened and branches tattered and scattered on the now grassless ground. That was right, Father had casted a fireball, causing a wild inferno to spread over the forest. They were closer.

 

Feeling a lump in her throat, Kasha advanced towards the clearing where she and Gorion had been attacked the night before. The ogres and the bowmen laid dead a few feet away from him.

 

“Loot their bodies, we might find something useful,” she told Imoen without turning to look at her, ashamed of the proof of her own weakness and cowardice lying dead before her.

 

When Kasha saw the body of the man who had raised her as if she had been his own daughter, the man who helped her become the woman she now was, she couldn't hold her feelings anymore. He had been cut down with a broadsword, felled by the armored figure that had filled her nightmares during her restless night. He was beyond any clerical aid, and it had all been  _ her  _ fault, for being a coward, for letting panic overwhelm her, for leaving him behind when he needed her the most…

 

Falling to her knees, Kasha let out a choked sob that gave way into an anguished wail. She cried her eyes out, holding Gorion's body close to her, knowing he would never smile at her again, give her advice, scold her for getting into fights with the guards…

 

She felt a pair of arms around her. Imoen's hair tickled her face, and she grimaced, but eventually laid her head on her chest as her childhood friend held her, weeping in silence. They stayed like that for a good while, finding comfort in each other's pain, until they both ran out of tears to cry. Oddly enough, Kasha felt better after letting it all out.

 

“I should have stayed and fought by his side,” she finally voiced the regrets that tormented her.

 

Imoen huffed, drying her reddened eyes.

 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! You know you could’ve done nothing! That guy… the one with the armor… he was far too powerful, I mean… he… he killed Gorion…”

 

Kasha clenched her fists. She felt anger rising to her chest like bile.

 

“I will take Gorion's body back to Candlekeep for the monks to take him in,” she announced, carrying him with all the gentleness she could manage. “He deserves a proper burial. And then I will become stronger. Strong enough that I can avenge him. That man in armor came for me, and there was something in his eyes… it terrified me, but I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. I won’t let Gorion's death go unpunished.”

 

Imoen patted the much taller woman's broad back, smiling warmly at her like she usually did.

 

“Ya know we're in this together, right?”

 

“You shouldn't have come, Im… but I'm glad you did,” Kasha replied, returning the smile. “Yes, we're in this together. I won't ever leave you behind, I promise.”

 

“And I promise the same to you,” Imoen chuckled. “Admit it, you'd bore yourself to death without me.”

 

Both girls laughed for the first time that day. It felt as liberating as their earlier crying. Broken as they may have been by the kindhearted sage's death, they had each other, and the bound of their friendship would not falter in their many trials to come.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you liked my angry girl being sad, but determined. I like to explore how different charnames would react to Gorion's death, so I wondered about Kasha, a fierce berserker, and this came out. Just because you're prone to raging and breaking skulls with two axes at the same time doesn't mean you don't have feelings!
> 
> I'd really appreciate any feedback about this new girl in town. Are you interested in reading more from her? Please do tell!


End file.
